Social Security Saga: getting l’assurance maladie in France (part 1)

When you work in France, you are entitled to social security and healthcare. That’s because they take away about 24% of your paycheck every month. Legally, you’re obligated to go through the process of getting a social security number, and hopefully a carte vitale, a green card that allows you to be automatically reimbursed for healthcare costs. Until you have it, you have to fill out beige forms to get reimbursed. (I have received approximately zero reimbursement so far, but everyone assures me that it will be processed sooner or later.)

Last year, I didn’t know how to get a social security number and my sketchy employer certainly didn’t offer any assistance, but this year, I was employed by the French government, so in October I got right to work submitting paperwork for my numéro provisoire.

“It’s very easy,” said the sécretaire at the lycée where I worked, “you just go to the office in the 4th arrondissement with your passport and your certification of employment, and they’ll give you a form to fill out with your temporary number. Once you have the temporary number, we’ll be able to process your paychecks”

I ran home to Vieux Lyon to get my passport, and zipped back up to Croix Rousse to get to the office before it closed.

Well, it was closed. Like, really closed. Like, they had closed the office in the fourth arrondissement permanently.

So I set off for Part Dieu, where the Assurance Maladie office was awake and functioning. They gave me a receipt with a number and a ridiculously underestimated wait time.

When my number was called, the lady kindly explained that I had it all wrong.

“No no, the sécretaire was mistaken. We haven’t had those carbon forms with the temporary social security numbers for ages. You’ll have to come back with copies of your entire passport and a bunch of other papers you didn’t know you needed, plus fill out this form and then you should receive your temporary number in about three weeks.”

The form looked like this. I took a picture because you always want proof when it comes to French bureaucracy.

After running all over town, the news that I would have to come back another day just to start the application process was not exactly welcome. But what could I do? I brought back all the necessary paperwork and was assured it would be processed quickly.

And then I waited. And waited. Three weeks, a month, came and went. Finally, two months later, I went back.

“What’s up, Sécu? Where are we on that whole getting me a social security number thing?”

They checked their system. And they checked it again. “Hm. We don’t appear to have your file. You’ll have to just start over. “

Are you kidding me?! Not even an insincere, “Sorry about losing all your paperwork and personal documents!” Just, “You’ll have to start over.”

Fine. Forty minutes home to get all my paperwork, plus a run to the school to print and copy what I didn’t have on hand (no! bad! Always keep a copy of EVERYTHING on hand on France!) and forty minutes back to l’Assurance Maladie at Part Dieu, and my dossier was resubmitted. Exactly how I wanted to spend my free Wednesday morning.

And I thought that would be it. They would process my dossier, I would receive my temporary number in the mail, and then after that, my carte vitale.